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Myrtia, Nº 22, 2007, Pp. 117-137 Montclair State

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Myrtia, Nº 22, 2007, Pp. 117-137 Montclair State Myrtia , nº 22, 2007, pp. 117-137 READING RESISTANCE IN THE GALATEA EPISODE OF OVID ’S METAMORPHOSES *1 PATRICIA SALZMAN -MITCHELL Montclair State University, NJ (USA) Resumen . El siguiente trabajo trata del discurso de cortejo de Polifemo (relatado por Galatea) y propone que tanto Polifemo como Galatea son tipos de lector del poema de Ovidio y de la elegía latina, si bien muy diferentes. Mientras el Cíclope percibe el texto de Metamorfosis y la figura elegíaca de la dura puella desde una perspectiva masculina, la diosa, se opone a este tipo de lectura. La autora argumenta que Galatea rechaza la construcción que de ella hace el Cíclope y que de este modo se opone también a una lectura simplista de las figuras femeninas en las Metamorfosis y en la elegía amorosa latina, convirtiéndose así en un lector que se opone a las lecturas masculinas sesgadas de la epopeya de Ovidio y la poesía amorosa. Se sostienen además los tres puntos siguientes: Galatea rechaza la cosificación de las mujeres en su animalización y asimilación al paisaje erotizado; rechaza, por otra parte, el estereotipo literario de la dura puella en el que el discurso del Cíclope intenta encasillarla, y comprende que el Cíclope desea privarla de su propia naturaleza e identidad y asimilarla completamente a su propio mundo. Summary . This paper discusses the wooing speech of Polyphemus (re-told by Galatea) and proposes that both Polyphemus and Galatea are readers of Ovid’s poem and of Latin Elegy, yet very different ones. While the Cyclops reads the text of Metamorphoses and the elegiac figure of the dura puella from a male-centered perspective, the goddess, resists this type of reading. I argue that Galatea rejects the construction of herself that the Cyclops shapes and that in this way she also resists the way the oaf reads images of women displayed throughout Metamorphoses and in Latin love elegy, thus becoming a resisting reader of male-biased readings of Ovid’s epic and amatory poetry. Further, three contentions are made, that Galatea rejects the reification of women in their animalization and assimilation to eroticized * Dirección para correspondencia : P. Salzman-Mitchell, Assistant Professor of Classics, Department of Classics and General Humanities, Montclair State University, Normal Ave., Montclair, New Jersey 97043, USA, e-mail: [email protected]. 1 I borrow the phrase “Reading Resistance” from Liveley’s paper on Pygmalion (1999). I would like to thank Prudence Jones and Jean Alvares for helpful suggestions to this paper. 118 P. Salzman-Mitchell landscape, that she also rejects the literary stereotype of the dura puella in which the Cyclops’ speech tries to encase her, and that she realizes that the Cyclops wishes to deprive her of her own nature and identity and to assimilate her completely to his own world. Palabras clave : Ovidio; Galatea; Polifemo/ Cí clope; Metamorfosis ; narrador femenino; lector femenino; resistencia en la lectura; teoría literaria; crítica literaria feminista; mito. Key words : Ovid; Galatea; Polyphemus/ Cyclops; Metamorphoses ; female narrator; female reader; reading resistance; literary theory; ferminist literary criticism; myth. In Book 13 (738-897) of Ovid’s epic, while the nymph Scylla combs her hair, the sea goddess Galatea narrates how she was wooed by the Cyclops Polyphemus though she was in love with the boy Acis. The setting of Galatea’s speech then is “girl talk,” as Mack puts it. 2 Galatea rejects the love of Polyphemus and the Cyclops, angered at the sight of the lovers in embrace, throws a rock at Acis to destroy him. Galatea, however, saves the boy by turning him into a river god. Galatea’s speech, as many other female discourses in the poem, consists of lamentation and self-pity and seems to represent man as monster and woman as victim. As Tissol indicates, the figure of Galatea narrating the story is an Ovidian innovation with respect to the model in Theocritus’ poem 11, the most direct source for the episode. 3 The tale then provides a feminine perspective, as all we know about the Cyclops and Acis is what we hear through Galatea’s focalisation. When Telemus warns Polyphemus that someone will take away his one eye, the giant replies: ‘altera iam rapuit [lumen ]’ ( Met .13.775). 4 These words are significant because, although in appearance Polyphemus is simply using a common amatory topos, they can be read metaphorically as an allusion to Galatea’s stealing of the Cyclops’ perspective and point of view in the narrative. 5 This paper discusses the wooing speech of Polyphemus (re-told by Galatea) and proposes that both Polyphemus and Galatea are readers of Ovid’s poem and of Latin Elegy, yet very different ones. While the Cyclops reads the 2 Mack, 1999, p. 56. On the narrative sequence in which the episode is placed and the narrative situation see Nagle, 1988 a, p. 76. 3 See Tissol, 1997, p. 113. For an excellent discussion of the Theocritan intertext see Farrell, 1992. For Homeric and Virgilian intertexts in the story see Mack, 1999. 4 For Polyphemus’ use of elegiac language here see Tissol, 1997, p. 20. One must of course note the amatory variant of captivation with the eyes in Propertius 1.1.1: Cynthia… me cepit ocellis . 5 It is a typically Ovidian irony that Galatea can only control the vision of a defective viewer who has just one eye. Reading Resistance in the Galatea Episode 119 text of Metamorphoses and the elegiac figure of the dura puella from a male- centered perspective, the goddess resists this type of reading. I argue that Galatea rejects the construction of herself that the Cyclops shapes and that in this way she also resists the way the oaf reads images of women displayed throughout Metamorphoses and in Latin love elegy, thus becoming a resisting reader of male- biased readings of Ovid’s epic and amatory poetry. Further, three contentions are made, that Galatea rejects the reification of women in their animalization and assimilation to eroticized landscape, that she also rejects the literary stereotype of the dura puella in which the Cyclops’ speech tries to encase her, and that she realizes that the Cyclops wishes to deprive her of her own nature and identity and to assimilate her completely to his own world. 2. Re-reading Metamorphoses : Ovid’s Metamorphoses offers a large variety of female narrators embedded in a larger male-authored narrative poem. How to read this diversity of voices is a highly problematic issue. Some argue that there is a single author, while others see many voices; still others try to find a middle ground. The crucial question seems to lie in deciding whether to consider these internal narratives as productions of a greater and ‘unique’ authorial voice or to give these discourses and their narrators independence and value free from the authority of the external author. 6 Two different modes of reading, which are particularly important when dealing with female readers, have been developed in literary criticism: releasing and resisting. Releasing reading is a strategy that essentially allows women’s voices to speak despite the author. It is a reading of the female voice in male- authored texts as independent from the male authorial intention. This is a more recuperative method that replaces the authority of the author with that of female characters, which is well exemplified by Spentzou’s reading of the Heroides as women writers and critics, who awaken from their literary lethargy and assume their own artistic voices. Releasing is, in essence, a shift of focus away from the author that allows agency to the female (and male) characters. 7 In this sense, the control of the text is not entirely under the command of the main narrator. Liveley’s approach to Pygmalion and the Propoetides is also partly 6 Some important discussions of the internal narrators in Metamorphoses are Keith, 1992, pp. 4-5, Segal, 1971, and 1978, Nagle, 1983, 1988 a, 1988 b, 1988 c, and 1989, Gamel 1984, Knox, 1986, pp. 48-64, Ahl, 1985, pp. 202-4, Hinds, 1987, pp. 91-93 and 121-132, Janan, 1988, Barchiesi, 1989, Konstan, 1991, Myers, 1994, pp. 61-132 and Wheeler, 1999. 7 See Spentzou’s work on the Heroides (2003). 120 P. Salzman-Mitchell realising, yet at the same time resisting. 8 While at first she unmasks the male bias in the apparent authorial (of Ovid, Orpheus, and Pygmalion) judgement of them in the poem, she proceeds to analyze the episode from a feminine perspective. She allows the ivory maiden some subjectivity and female agency. Also, a rather recuperative approach can be found in Marder’s work on Philomela. Marder sees that in the silence of Procne and Philomela and their vengeance there are a refusal to speak the language of the father and a violation of his laws. She likens the women in the tale striving for an alternative “disarticulated” language with the struggles of feminism “to find a discursive vocabulary for experiences both produced and silenced by patriarchy.” 9 In this paper I will take Galatea’s speech as an independent verbal production of a woman and inquire about what the female voice has to say, rather than subordinate it to the larger authorial voice of the male narrator. I will also see the Cyclops as an independent character capable of his own readings of Metamorphoses and Latin elegy, though of course, our perception of his readings is here sieved through Galatea’s voice. In this sense, my reading will be releasing. Reading as resistance began with Fetterly’s The Resisting Reader, where the author attempts to appropriate a feminine reading by questioning the authority of the male author and critic and by exposing the patriarchal strategies of the texts.
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